Saturday, January 31, 2009

Two special days

The 25th of January was ‘Burns Day’ and 26th of January was ‘Australia Day’.

At Ukarumpa, the Australians got together and celebrated Australia Day a day early, on the 25th. We had a BBQ and hung out together. There was a game of cricket happening too, but I just sat and talked with people. On the actual Australia Day, the 26th, my Christmas parcel from my family arrived finally! So Australia Day became Christmas Day for me again. I was glad that my parcel came safely in the end.

Burns Day is a Scottish thing, remembering the poet Robert Burns. I decided to have two people over for a ‘Burns supper’, which is usually a meal with haggis and mashed potatoes and Burns poetry recital. The two people I invited aren’t Scottish, but they have lived and studied in Scotland.

I made a haggis x meatloaf, mashed potato and sweet potato and cooked some peas. I read out the poem ‘Address to a haggis’ when I served the haggis, and later I recited the first stanza of ‘To a mouse’. You can find the words to these if you do an internet search.